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Round Table:
Romania on the Movie Map (2009)
By Ronald Bergan

"Is Romanian cinema over-rated?," was one of the first questions that Alex Leo Serban, one of the two moderators at the round table discussion on the subject, Romania on the Movie Map, put to the eight international guests invited to Bucharest. The consensus among Yoram Allon, Fabien Baumann, Scott Foundas, Dan and Edna Fainaru, Boyd van Hoeij, Jay Weissberg and myself, was a resounding "No".

This was not only based on the award-winning Romanian films such as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, 12.08 East of Bucharest, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, California Dreamin’ and The Paper Will Be Blue, from the past few years, enough in itself to herald a new wave, but on the evidence of the latest films that were on display for us this year. Thanks to the Romanian Film Critics Association headed by Cristina Corciovescu and Magda Mihailescu (the other moderator), we were shown eight new features, several shorts, some trailers, in addition to being given a tour of the very busy Mediapro Studios.

Although the features were of variable quality, the general standard was exceptionally high, especially when compared to what is offered annually by other small European countries such as Portugal, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland. By being given the chance to see a bunch of recent Romanian films over three days, all of which provided rich material for discussion, we were able to pick up common themes and stylistic similarities.

Inevitably, there was a heated debate about whether the films should carry the label of "minimalism". Certainly, most of them have the characteristics of that cinematic style — low budgets, long takes, realistic subjects, diegetic sound, negligible plots — but the label is only a convenient critical short hand, as Variety critic Jay Weissberg acknowledged. In fact, this style has been one of Romanian cinema's great strengths and identifiable characteristics, distinct from, say, Iranian "minimalism". The term "Romanian Realism" seemed to satisfy most of the panel and the audience.

The dominant theme of the films seemed to be either escape from Romania and/or reluctant return. In Bobby Paunescu's Francesca, a young girl wishes to take up a job in Italy, but is frustrated in her quest; in Razvan Radalescu's First of All, Felicia, which gave us the pleasant surprise of starring our hostess Ozana Oancea (speaking excellent Dutch, confirmed by our Dutch colleague Boyd van Hoeij), as a woman desperately trying to get a plane from Bucharest back to Holland; in Stere Gulea's Weekend with My Mother, a woman, returning from Spain, hopes to take her drug-addict teenage daughter and grandchild back with her; in Andrei Gruzsniczki's The Other Irina, a wife leaves her husband to work in Cairo, where she dies, and in Radu Potcoava's medium-length Tiger Danny, a young man tries to leave Romania for the USA, but misses his plane.

In all of these, there is an unspoken criticism of those who try to leave Romania, which seems to be like the house from which nobody can escape in Luis Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel. Whether significant or not, the best of the films, Corneliu Porumboiu's Police, Adjective, bore little resemblance to the other films whether thematically or stylistically. Nobody is trying to leave Romania, there is very little driving in the dense traffic of Bucharest (a constant motif in many films), neither is there any overt attempt to make a wider comment on Romanian society as Porumboiu did in his brilliant first feature, 12.08 East of Bucharest.

Yet, Police, Adjective, is an oblique critique of certain aspects of society at large and shares with the earlier film, a wry sense of humour. However, the second film is more "filmic" than the first, which had a certain static "theatrical" side. Here, the style and subject are perfectly wedded. The young policeman (Dragos Bucur, the anti-hero of Boogie) spends almost the whole film watching and waiting. He is in every scene, so the film is as subjective as is possible without any use of p.o.v shots. He is a lonely figure — isolated from his wife and colleagues. He is an observer and we observe with him.

Like some of the other "minimalist" films, there are long takes of seemingly banal happenings, but here, each prolonged shot is related to the character and is visually absorbing. Even when he is hanging about in the same spot, there is something different about the camera angle or the background. The film also contains three tour-de-force comically linguistic sequences, the humour being plainly derived from Eugene Ionesco's absurdist plays as well as being reminiscent of Harold Pinter's comic riffs, though Porumboiu told me he hadn't heard of Pinter. (The film must also be the first ever to show a game of foot tennis, of which I had never heard.)

Last year, when Romanian cinema was still on the crest of the wave, a round table on the same subject was held. But as Magda Mihailescu said, "Une fois n'est pas coutume", so I never suspected that we would be back the following year. I cynically feel that one day, after the euphoria, the industry will wake up with a bad hangover. But, given the films we were shown by directors, many of whom are still in their 30s, the party will be continuing for some time yet.

Ronald Bergan
© FIPRESCI 2009

The "Romania on the Movie Map" conference took place on April 4th, 2009, in Bucharest as part of the NexT Film Festival.

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